


Dirty Pool

by peaceloveandjocularity, stateofintegrity



Category: MASH (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-22
Updated: 2020-09-22
Packaged: 2021-03-08 00:27:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,781
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26596762
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/peaceloveandjocularity/pseuds/peaceloveandjocularity, https://archiveofourown.org/users/stateofintegrity/pseuds/stateofintegrity
Summary: The 4077th accidentally receives a pool table. The games it gets subjected to aren't entirely conventional.
Relationships: Maxwell Klinger/Charles Emerson Winchester III
Comments: 2
Kudos: 10





	Dirty Pool

“What in the hell are you doing?” Winchester demanded. He wanted to scream his head off. It was as if his feet had known just where to go, as if the compass needle of his soul had somehow been automatically swung to the location of the eccentric creature before him. 

Despite the late hour, Klinger remained very much the fashion plate. He wore the pants from his uniform, but the army green was belted with thin silver bands that dangled over his thighs, accented with heavy chunks of clear crystal. An hourglass corset top in ivory black lace should have looked absurd, but Klinger wore it very well. 

The Corporal didn’t turn. “Playing pool.” The ivory orb slipped obligingly down the rabbit hole, followed by the cue ball.

The 4077th had been the accidental recipient of a pool table meant for a general’s villa and Klinger had been taking full advantage of its presence, having practically been raised in pool halls. 

“At one A.M.?”

Klinger was still concentrating, bent over the table. “Can’t sleep. OR was… well, you know.” 

Winchester found it disconcerting that Klinger didn’t turn. The low light in the supply tent dappled his naked shoulders with shadow, creating a chiaroscuro effect. He found himself wondering what it would take to force the Corporal to face him. What he definitely didn’t want was to talk about the evening’s OR session. It had been ugly. 

Charles had never performed worse in his life, though the bodies he’d tried to mend had been so mangled that it likely hadn’t mattered. He waited, expecting Klinger, who virtually never shut up, to say more, to jab him about his ego, but the Corporal was silent, aiming at an orange-striped orb, neck taut with concentration. A bead of sweat slipped down the surgeon’s shoulder blades.

“You can’t play pool alone,” he finally declared.

Sinking a difficult shot, Klinger just smiled.

As they played, the Corporal did his best not to chuckle at the metaphors holding court in his mind. Keep your eye on the ball, indeed! And what he wouldn’t give to have his hands in a certain someone’s side pocket. . . As an indigo ball skittered away at the touch of Winchester’s stick, he thought,  _ you could cure my blue balls just as easily, Major – just one good thrust. _

For his part, Charles couldn’t help but notice the similarities between the green felt of the table and his late night companion’s eyes: both were fields of possibility – clear, clean, and lovely. And though it made him half-dizzy to admit it, he was fairly certain that he could bring as much skill to playing with  _ Klinger _ as he did to playing pool. He didn’t follow the thought too closely. In the shadowed, empty room it was too dangerous.

Of course, the only thing he had for distraction  _ was  _ Klinger, who, even after hauling litters and hustling in and of the OR at high speeds, remained energetic and bright-eyed, his movements precise. Feeling a pride that was a little like ownership, Charles watched the quick and subtle motions of his wrists, focused (a little too long, perhaps) on his lovely limbs, wondered if he’d been wearing that top under his clothes during surgery. When Klinger bent again to pursue a distant shot, the Major felt the bottom of his stomach fall, elevator plunging in response to a fierce and sudden desire.

When he spoke, saying, “I know what it is that you are attempting to do,” Klinger surprised him by completely missing the shot, sending a yellow ball spinning wildly.

“Oh?”

“You are not terribly good at it.”

Klinger didn’t refute his words. His subtle glances had told him that his quiet displays hadn’t made the object of his desire hard - yet. “At what, sir?” he asked, taking refuge in chalking the end of his stick.

“Do not be coy. You are attempting, kindly, to distract me from my ruinous performance this evening by forcing me to chase these mad shots of yours across the table.” 

“You caught me, Major,” the Corporal said, smiling quietly. At least he could continue the crazy shots, setting up Winchester’s pose far more carefully than he set himself up to win. “Then again, I could just be out of practice.” The balls clacked together, punctuating his words.

Charles shook his head at him, taking an answering shot that failed to further the game. Unable to quite find a good angle, Klinger followed him by hopping up on the edge of the table, balancing with the stick across his lap.

“Now,  _ that  _ I cannot do. You certainly are nimble.” 

Klinger smirked to himself.  _ You should see what I can do in bed. _

Though ready with another jab, Winchester was prevented from pursuing this line of conversation when all of the moisture suddenly evaporated from his mouth. Sitting, still, on the table’s edge, with one leg dangling and the other angled around him, Klinger 

was either carrying a collapsible pool stick in his pants – or he was thinking thoughts that didn’t have anything to do with their little game. Their pool game, anyway!

_ Do I truly get to you so very much _ ? Charles wondered. He decided to find out. 

Following a scientist’s instinct for experimentation, he promptly took the next shot from an obscene distance, leaning all the way across the table. 

_ Turn around is fair play, pretty pet _ , he thought, completely forgetting that he didn’t  _ want _ Klinger to be attracted to him – that he had once been completely disgusted by the idea. 

A long reflective piece of plastic meant for shielding against contamination hung on the opposite wall. By stealing glances into its shiny surface, Winchester was able to see how the Corporal was holding up. In it, he saw Klinger lean back against the wall – a little too casually.  _ That’s it, my girl,  _ he chuckled inside,  _ take a good, hard look. _ The mirror told him when one of his moves made the Corporal’s eyes go wide – and when they went dark. He almost stopped out of fear when he saw that velvety darkness, but he decided that quitting would be taking it too easy on his companion. Klinger showed no signs of relenting; why should he? 

Competitive to the core, he came up behind his quarry and repositioned his fingers. “You will hurt yourself, holding on that tight,” he said, almost into his ear.

Trembling, Klinger made a sound of assent, but he still missed the shot. Even in his confusion over what exactly he wanted from the Corporal, Charles couldn’t help feeling flattered. He’d never gotten to anyone else that way. Stepping back, just a little, he asked, “Want me to show you again?”

He smiled to note that Klinger didn’t sound at all like himself when he answered, “No, I think I’ve got it.”

But he lost, just the same. Looking up from the winning shot, Charles flashed him a challenging smile. “Want to go again?”

“Bring it.”

Redoubling his efforts, Klinger kept his head somewhat better through the second game, and even got in a few shots himself. When one pant leg lifted to show black stockings, Winchester’s stick came in contact with only felt. 

Knowing how hard he was, the physician couldn’t help but admire his companion’s accuracy.  _ He must be dripping _ , he mused,  _ underthings all wet against his skin.  _ He flushed, then realizing he was close to describing himself. He tugged absentmindedly at his shirt, wishing it were longer.

He watched Klinger heft the stick he was using, long fingers moving from the wide base to the tapered end. He swallowed hard and wished there were fewer balls left to sink.

The next time he came up behind him, Klinger thought he was ready, but somehow those long-fingered hands stilled his wrists and tossed the stick aside, not caring if it broke. Then one of those hands was on his naked back, bending him down. 

“Major?” 

“I have a suggestion for how you might prove a  _ better  _ distraction, dear.” 

Wrapping a bit of black silk around one finger, Charles tugged. One loop hissed and unwound; Klinger gasped. 

Winchester sounded entirely  _ too  _ composed when he said, “My dear Max, why are you gasping like that? Are your bindings too tight?”

The pretty Corporal forced himself to breathe somewhat normally to say, “There’s just too many of them. Get a move on it, Major.”

Charles grinned. “So impatient.” 

Devoted as he was to the creation of clothing, Klinger knew just how shoddily (read: thin) fatigues were made, so he wriggled against the man holding him down. “You’d be impatient in this position, too, sir.”

“Just making sure that I can reach the ties, ah, unimpeded.”

“You have long fingers.”

“Yes.” He used them to his advantage. “And you squirm entirely too much.”

“Glad you noticed. Feel free to join in.”

Charles leaned down to nip at his shoulder. “I am enjoying myself too well as it is.”

_ Oh no _ . He knew how terribly patient Charles could be; it was how he often won out over BJ and Pierce. Fortunately, Klinger was a world class talker. Maybe he could speed things along. “I made this top you know. I was thinking of you when I sewed it.”

“Were you thinking of my hands holding you down as I untrussed you?”

_ Help.  _ Charles could talk dirty? He was in trouble. “Didn’t think it was that lucky of a top, to tell the truth. Now I think I’ll wear it a lot - good luck charm and all.” 

Charles yanked sharply at the ties. “You won’t be wearing it at all in a moment.” He felt the cool bite of the rock crystal belt as it slithered past his touch. 

“I’m  _ begging _ , Major.” 

“Not yet, you aren’t.”

_ That was foolish of you, sir _ . Giving full throat to everything he was feeling, Klinger pushed back against him and said, “Please, Charles?”

The Major  _ shivered _ . It was, so far, the biggest thrill Klinger had ever felt. But Charles recovered fast enough to say (albeit a little shakily), “Better. Looking so pretty, I wondered if you would sound the same.”

_ Damn _ . “I can be pretty,” he promised. 

“I know. I watch you. See you shining as you move around the camp. But will you be pretty for  _ me _ ? Good for me? You win so much attention, you know.”

Klinger moaned into the felt. “I can be so good for you,” he promised. “Please. Just for you.”

That was the right answer, apparently, for the corset top fell away and Charles hands were  _ everywhere _ , exploring him, caressing him. His teeth scraped over his neck. When Klinger threw his head back to offer access, Charles smiled. “That’s my good girl.”

Klinger whined at the endearment, wanting to demand,  _ How do you know to say  _ **_that_ ** _!?  _ But he settled for reaching behind him, holding Charles’ hips close against his. “You’re not near as stuffy as you’ve got everybody thinking, Major.” 

“I intend to remain ‘stuffy’ in their books, darling. You, on the other hand… you are so pretty that you could unravel me just like this.”

Klinger was at least 75% certain that he’d just heard a very Charles version of  _ You could get me off while I’m still dressed if you wanted to. _ “You can’t stay stuff like that unless you’re gonna let me turn around.” 

“Patience is a virtue, Max.”

“I’ve been waiting for you since you  _ got _ here.” 

Charles chuckled at that, flattered. “Are you saying you do not wish to be virtuous, love?”

“I’m  _ too _ virtuous _ , _ ” Klinger shot back, frustrated by his inability to get quite as close as he wished. “And I might not be Harvard, but you know what virtuous  _ sounds like, _ right? Got it, sir?”

He did, and he was beyond thrilled. Reaching around to undo the slighter man’s belt, Charles murmured into his hair. “I understand.”

“ _ Charles!” _

“Max,” the surgeon returned, sounding, still, entirely too in control of things. “Do continue to sound so helpless, dear.”

Klinger panted. “Not sounding -  _ being _ .” 

Somehow, in a way that Klinger thought surely must be illegal, Charles managed to take an incredibly long time to bare his hips. “Well, we can’t have  _ that _ , now can we?”

“Major, you're killing me.”

“You did a fine job, yourself, while we were playing. I had heard you say that you ‘hustled’ pool, but I did not previously take your meaning.” His hands were busy even as his words were calm. 

“Never hustled like this. If I’da known it would work, I woulda requisitioned a pool table a long time ago.”

“Oh, you could have bent over anything, darling. The effect would have been the same.”

Klinger swallowed hard. The 4077 was full of things he could bend over. “I’ll, uh, keep that in mind. Now can we, uh, move on with the program?”

“You have somewhere to be at 3 in the morning?”

“Nope. But I’d rather not die of - whaddaya call it? Exsanguination? That’s when you lose all your blood right? Because I think that’s happening to me right now. Not enough blood going anywhere else in my body.”

Charles laughed - maybe the first real laughter he’d experienced since being transferred. There was nothing snide in it - just a musical sort of happiness. “That is not precisely how it works, my pretty sometime-nurse, but you may color me impressed with your vocabulary as well as your sewing. As a medical professional, I promise not to allow you to die of anything unpleasant in my arms.”  _ A small, pleasurable, oft-repeated form of dying, however…  _

Klinger had, by this time, managed to get one hand on his stomach, at least, fingers working to slip beneath his waistband. “If this is how I go, I’d really rather it be  _ after _ you fuck me. Or during, so I can go doing what I love.”

“I thought this was, ah, something of a debut?”

“Sure, but it’s not like I don’t think about it. We’ve had some really good times, Major. You shoulda been there.”

Wishing for easier access to his mouth, Charles lifted him and sat him on the green velvet, where his legs instantly settled around his waist. “I wish I had been,” ther surgeon confessed. “You have a, ah, preferred venue for these sorts of things?” Seeing Klinger like this, undressed, dark eyes sparkling for him, made talking more difficult, but if Charles could customize this fortuitous night he wanted to do so. 

“Usually it’s my desk,” Klinger admitted. 

“To borrow a phrase: holy Toledo. That’s, ah, a rather open space, Max.”

Those eyes shined brighter yet, teasing. “So you agree Toledo is better than Boston? I've never heard you say Holy Boston, Major.”

“It gave me you, so it has increased in my estimation.”  _ And how bereft that Midwestern town must be without you to increase its luster.  _ “However, I do have my own home in Boston with lots of lovely furniture that I could sit you upon… or atop.” Klinger’s legs tightened around him. 

“Closet space?” he teased. 

“Enough to increase your signature collection twenty times over.”

Max heard something in his voice then. “You aren’t kidding.”  _ Holy… Boston, I guess! _

Charles smiled, slowly shook his head. 

“I’m taking that as a proposal, then.”

“Please do. I doubt it will be the last I make to you, however.”

Their bond - and the wordplay that characterized it - remained intact. “Can I propose we skip to the wedding night, then?” 

“The vows or the consummation?”

“You’re a really cruel fiancé, Major.”

“I’ll be a better husband, I promise.”

“Can you be a less well-dressed one for a minute?” He ran his hands over the jacket Charles wore. “How attached are you to buttons?”

“My fiance’s a skilled seamstress.”

“Your fiancee is going to re-tailor this. It could be a lot tighter.”

Charles buried his head in his neck, delighting in the warmth of him, the uniqueness of him that allowed him to think about such things at such a time. “Everyone else in camp will see me, too, mind.”

“Sure, but they can’t touch. Hawk will try. Tell him you’re engaged, huh?”

“He may be more likely to take your word if you, ah, leave your mark.”

Klinger got up on his knees to reach his neck, imprinting his mouth just over his collarbone. “I meant a seamstress’s mark on  _ my clothes _ , but this is nice, too.”

Klinger kept going, making a row of marks meant to read  _ Mine _ . 

_ Noli me tangere _ , Charles thought and almost laughed again. For all of his wealth and for all of his family’s many legacies (and some of them were actually good), no one had ever wanted to make them entirely theirs before, to mark him off limits to all touches but theirs.  _ I really am going to propose to you, Max, and as quickly as I may find a reasonable ring with which to do so… though I will use a bread tie in this awful place is I must if such a placeholder will allow me to hold onto you _ . 

“Wear your white scarf to cover it,” Klinger said, sounding breathless. 

“A favorite of yours?” 

Klinger left off teasing, tongue setting flame to wherever it touched to say, “You were wearing it when I fell for you.”

“Max, darling, I haven’t, ah, mmm, worn that scarf since I arrived here.” His head went back to better welcome that mouth. 

“What’s your point?” 

At this, Charles basically  _ threw _ him down in the center of the table. “You might have given me a sign!”

“Didn’t exactly think you’d go for it, Major.” He was proud to have gotten this out, given that Winchester had kissed down his chest and buried his head between his thighs. “Besides, you like things better when you start ‘em. If I had got on my knees and unzipped you, you would’ve slowed it down with a bunch of talk about it being a bad idea.” 

Charles sucked a mark into the skin on the inside of his leg. “You did start this, my darling, by looking so fetching.”

“You told me to be pretty.”

“Yes. Now, can you also be quite brave?” 

“Brave?” It wasn’t really what he was known for, section eight attempts and all. 

“Mmm-hmm. You wished to cease being virtuous, as I understood it. Are you quite sure?”

“I knew you’d hold things up.” 

“Darling, I would not take you to bed if I did not love you and I love you enough to remind you that there are many people, even in this hell, who would adore you and who would be better matches, perhaps, than I.”

Klinger groaned. “I shoulda typed it out, but I’d of died if the Colonel saw what I was writing. Major, I want you. Just you. And you can tell me it’s a bad idea for the rest of our lives if you want, but I loved you after you’d been here a week and I haven’t stopped. I’m brave enough to face a whole life with you, Charles. Promise.” 

Charmed by the idea of Max hen-pecking a missive that contained his (racy) hopes for them, Charles held him tight, then set out to reward his bravery. Wide-eyed, the Corporal watched him kiss his admiration into his thighs; the neglected part of him throbbed, straining after contact that Charles withheld just to see if he would ask for it. 

“Major…”

_ That’s it, beautiful.  _ Charles had never heard anything as nice as this young Corporal calling out for him. 

“ _ Charles… _ ”

He lifted his head to look in those desperate eyes. “Yes, my love?” He dipped back down, running the tip of his tongue along his inner thigh. 

Guileless as ever (an interesting trait in so performative a creature), Max threw his head back. This time he didn’t even manage his name, just a sound that was pure entreaty. 

“Open your legs a little wider, sweet. That’s it. Such a good girl.” 

Max whined, but the sound cut out when Charles took him into his mouth, simultaneously sinking two fingers inside. His eyes wanted to close but he made them move back and forth from those lips, wet around him, to those fingers, curling, stroking, caressing, moving in and out. 

“Major, baby…”

“You feel that you have been quite pretty for quite long enough?” Charles spoke against skin that was sensitive with longing and damp with the attentions of his mouth. 

“Please?”

“Yes.”

Max begged for him, arched against him, and made it delightfully difficult for Charles to enter him. The proud Major had never wanted to scream from what was essentially a sort of naked waltz before, but Maxwell was  _ tantalizing _ . His hips moved in a wordless ask until Charles had to hold them down. Then he was the one saying, “Yes,” and gratefully, at that, as he was taken into that tight heat. Only his love for Max allowed him to stave off his need to move within him, for him. He needed his lover to show him, first, that he was free of pain. And he wanted to know he was desired, too. 

“Charles - please! Please, baby,  _ please _ .”

And it was so sweet and so full of wanting, that darling voice, that he hurried to find the rhythm that would please Maxwell most. Strong fingers gripped him, and Max’s legs drew him in, shaking for him. Charles felt that trembling and grinned, flattered, knew he would do anything - always - to know that he was making Max feel  _ that _ . “I love you, my darling girl,” he said into the writhing thing’s hair, “my sweet Corporal.” He smiled again as Max shivered at the sound of his voice. 

But the smile fled when Max began to call for him, to cry out for him (hearing his name had an effect on Charles, too). And he answered with all he was, knew he’d done it well when Klinger’s eyes flew open, wonder-wide. Charles held his gaze and nodded softly, smiling down on him with admiration. “I have you, darling. Do let go.” 

When their trembling grew less, they lay side by side on green felt that was dark with sweat. Charles chuckled, drew his new love near. Klinger curled up with him, listened to his heart beating. “Glad you proposed, Major.” 

“Oh?” 

“Losing at pool, it’s not so bad if it’s you. My best friend. My fiancé.” 

“I promise to let you win next time.”

“Didn’t you?” 

Charles rummaged for his jacket and wrapped it around Max’s thin, firm, beautiful frame. The motions of his hands said that he felt himself very much the night’s victor and that he was very, very grateful for his prize. 

End! 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  



End file.
